2021 Week 14

 Hello lovely people in blog land, how is your corner of the world?  Mine is doing OK!

Our savings are invested in premium bonds and husband loves to check each month to see what we've won - just look what we won on 1st April.  Convinced?  Sadly it was an April Fool's joke!

I made some Easter Gingers for my sitting room window, and dropped some more Easter Egg versions to my little Ginger Fan club members

Along with lovely Thank You cards and messages I got 2 photos  of Ginger Collections!  Don't they look great!

Our village We're all in this together" group celebrated it's first birthday, so needed a ginger

And oldest daughter celebrated her (ahem) 30th birthday - she got a crochet blocking square, crochet hooks and a storage case for her hooks

Youngest daughter was given some second hand netball bibs (could mum please fix the elastic straps!) so i also made her a bag to keep them in - I love the name of the team!!!

If you want a good book I thoroughly recommend this one.  The first 90% was great but I was getting anxious as to how she could possibly wrap it up before the end then Oh My Gosh!  I cant tell you in case you read it, but if you do please let me know, I'd love to be able to talk to someone about it!!!!

And "someone" sent me a card, a little pouch and some chocolate for Easter - thank you Jackie!  I cant begin to tell you how much better my life is for having you in it (and what utter cr@p it is that we cant meet up!)

I spent a morning with young D who has been learning machine embroidery for her skill section of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme (Rest In Peace, sir, I hope you knew what an amazing legacy this scheme would be)

She designed this bunny

and we tried to stitch it out but my old portable machine clearly needs a service, 

so I stitched it out at home for her

I have a collection of much loved Chambery summer shirts - some are nearly worn out, and others have shrunk in the wardrobe (!)  One was neither - it's problem was that it was too short.  So I took a deep breath and cut up all the shrunk ones, and the bits of the others that had some life left, and lengthened the short one

There are raw seams top and bottom, but I'm rather chuffed with the method I used to join the strips as there are no vertical raw seams

There was some darker Chambery left when I'd finished and I had some yardage that was slightly too dark for the shirt too (left over from this previous adaptation:)

 

And there was a denim pinafore that I loved but was too short to wear with leggings and too long to wear with jeans - so flushed with success I'm lengthening the pinafore too!

And finally a finish (that's gone back on the to-do list!)

The binding fabric arrived, and the quilt was bound . . .

And then I realised one of the spirals was missing on the left hand side!  Luckily it's still do-able even after the binding has been added - phew!

2020 Week 51

 This dotty paper foundation pieced quilt was finally finished this week

The binding was black (with small white dots) onto black fleece - I'm glad that's finished, it was really difficult to see where each stitch was 

The upteenth attempt to start my crochet spiral circle is actually working!  As I cant start a crochet piece I'm in the hands of others as to how it's going top look, but Lisa made a great choice in the style of this one - I'm using the variegated wool and the cream wool together!

My friend Louise had her first baby, Jessica, the same day I had Lisa - that's actually how we met - in adjoining beds.  We used to see a lot of each other but over the last 29 (!) years life has moved on so its less frequent but it's always a joy to see her and her three girls.  Grandchild number 3 has a feeding issue and has to be tube fed . . . could I find a way to add front / belly zips to baby vests so the port can be accessed.  I started with creating a lined opening and trying to add the zip to the front but it was a lot of fiddling ... so for this one I added a second zip put to the zip, stitched it on the outside, then opened the zip and cut away the now unnecessary fabric behind it - took about 5 minutes!  It's gone in the post to them - if it works for them I can easily adapt other vests for baby M

Louise's second daughter, Claudia, is my God Daughter, and she has just become a mum - baby William was born earlier this week.  This EPP quilt seemed a perfect gift - with three big cousins who can use the fussy cut hexies to invent stories for him!

So I've added his name and this has gone in the post too!

The girls and I did another on-line Brush Party painting class - it was great fun but we are not natural painters so would like to do one with a real life person - when ever we are allowed to!!!  Anyway, I don't think these are too shabby!!!

A very good friend of mine is Jewish.  She ordered a few Christmas gingers from me: I added a Hanukkah ginger for her - just mixing my faith and non faith celebrations!!!!

More Gingers - these went to Manchester to my childhood best friend (I love that we've reconnected through Facebook!)

For a quite week there seems to have been a lot happening!  It was mum's birthday last weekend - but we were not allowed to meet in a home so we agreed to meet for a walk and a picnic - come the day it was *pouring*, so we chucked the gazebo into the car too and used the boots of the cars as seats!

A birthday we wont forget in a while!!!  Mum enjoyed it!

Nat used the Elf Ginger costumes

My friend Jane crocheted me an awesome Julenissen

And Barbara made me a mask with a matching zippy - isn't it great!!!!

If I'm not in touch with you before "the" day - I hope it's a great one even if it's not what we hoped for and we cant see the people we want to see, but by doing the right thing this year we can see each other next year.

Lots of love xxxx 

2020 Week 39 - Gingers Galore

 Halloween is approaching!  The friend who organised the "We're all in this together" Facebook events in the two villages (that fueled the Gingers sensation) is now planning a Pumpkin Trail.  It's obviously not safe for the kids to be accepting sweets from residents who may be inadvertently passing on the virus so we are at least hoping to give them all a number of displays to visit.

Of course this means Pumpkin and Halloween Gingers!!!

About the same time I was commissioned to make a Halloween quilt, so I might have made some more Gingers but as applique rather than hanging ones

What you cant see is that for the spider's eyes and around the letters in the name I have used glow in the dark thread!!!  I couldn't do more as this was the last few foot of precious glow thread that I've had for ages, but it was such fun to use I've given in and bought other spool

The quilt is looking good, just need to finish the binding.

But it's not the only one!  There are three waiting to be done!

Continuing the ginger theme . . .  yesterday was my birthday - I got two hand drawn Ginger cards from little fans in the village, and 5 Ginger Birthday themed images and GIFs from friends on Facebook!!!

I've clearly got myself a reputation!!!

Other birthday pressies included a painting by numbers kit (and a promise of a painting session with the girls one afternoon as they have one each too), a note book with a hand made hexie themed cover from Plum, a rock with an ammonite fossil in it (found and gifted by paleontologist God Daughter) and a beautiful carved wooden candle stick from a 'pre-loved' furniture barn near Lisa's new house

And a gorgeous bunch of flowers from Jackie!

2019 Wk 39 - whole piece quilting and a day out

The whole piece quilt is rather lovely even if I do say so myself!  I have a plan for it, but then I had more ideas of what to do with it . . .  so I started another one!  This one doesn't have any specific negative space, and it has more hand stitching than is planned for the bigger piece, and I just used the machine running stitch.  More hand stitching is on the cards

It was my birthday this week and Plum and Avril have blogged about Chihuly at Kew Gardens.  It's not that far from us so we booked tickets and went for the afternoon.  I thought we would see them lit up, but we went on Wednesday and the "Chihuly Nights" session are Thursday, Friday and Saturday :-(  We had a good time though, although I declined the opportunity to buy a small bowl for £6000!!!!

 

My favourites though are the pagoda I remember from going there as a child and the dragons on every corner of every roof

and the wrought iron spiral staircases - I cant help feeling my life would be complete if I had the space for one of these!!!

This week end I did a bit more hand sewing on the second whole cloth piece

and found a purpose for the amazing folder Plum sent me for my birthday

(My friend Sharon gave me a journaling bible for my birthday and a guide book . . .and persuaded another friend of ours to get me some journaling pens . . .  and they all fit perfectly in the folder - thank you Plum (and Sharon and Alison!) no comments on lack of artistic talent thank you!!!!